Chapter XV: The Arrival

The 4.50 train hammered and pounded in a jerkily driven manner to Ridgetown. It was hot, and most of the windows lay open in the endeavour to catch any air that had escaped being stifled in smoke and the dust of iron. Miss Meredith occupied a first-class carriage together with two people. One, an old gentleman who travelled daily and who did not count, the other a dark-eyed girl of pale complexion. She wore irreproachably fitting tweeds, and as though to contradict the severity of their trim appearance, a very flamboyant red hat. It was tip-tilted in a smart way over her nose, and had an air of seeming to make every other hat within eyeshot scream dejectedly, "I come from the country."

The red hat came from the town, London presumably. The dark girl seemed in a petulant mood, as though the atmosphere of the carriage stifled her in more ways than by its being uncontrollably hot. It was out of gear with the smooth, madonna-like appearance of her features, that she should be petulant at all. There was an indescribable placidity about her carriage and expression which contradicted her movements at this moment of nearing Ridgetown. She caught Miss Meredith's eye on her, and seemed annoyed at the interest it displayed. Miss Meredith was much impressed by her appearance. As a rule, she confined her ideas of people in Ridgetown either to their being "refined" or "rather vulgar." This girl had not the air of being either of those two. She was a type which had never been dissected in Ridgetown. It was as evident that one would neither say of her that she was the complete lady, nor yet that she was un-ladylike. One could say that she was good-looking, adorably good-looking. Calm, lucid eyes, containing a calculating challenge in their expression, milky complexion framing their mysterious depths of darkness, red lips parting occasionally with her breathing over startlingly white teeth, this was all very different to the rosebud complexions, the rather shy demeanour of Ridgetown.

Miss Meredith could act as a very capable little policeman when she became interested in any one. She determined to act the policeman now that she was aware this must be a visitor to Ridgetown. They had passed the last slow stopping-place, and were nearing what must be her destination. Each station without the name of Ridgetown had evidently annoyed the dark girl.

"The next station is Ridgetown," said Miss Meredith pleasantly.

The dark girl stared.

"Oh, ah, is it?" she asked negligently.

An old gentleman rose from the corner and began collecting his belongings.

"May I help you?" he asked, and lifted down her dressing case.

She became radiant.

"Thank you so much," she said very gracefully.

Miss Meredith felt in an annoyed manner that her own overtures had been unrecognized in favour of these. She could be an abject person, however, wherever she intended to make an impression, and decided not to be non-plussed too soon. Doubtless the dark girl was about to visit some friend of her own. She rose at her end of the carriage to get a parasol from the rack. It allowed the new arrival to swing out on the platform even before the train was stopped.

Miss Meredith saw Isobel being received by the Leightons.

This was enough to allow of Miss Meredith's slipping away unnoticed before a porter came to find the neglected dressing bag. But she went unwillingly, and in a new riot of opinion. The truth came forcibly that the new cousin would be a great sensation in Ridgetown. It was strange that she had never dreamed that the dark girl might be the Leightons' cousin. No occasion would be complete without her. A few weeks ago, and she might have had her first reception at the Merediths', where they should have had the distinction of introducing her. Now, owing to late events, relations might be rather strained between themselves and the Leightons.

Miss Meredith had grown more ambitious each year with regard to her brother. She was the ladder by which he had climbed into social prominence in Ridgetown. Her diligence overcame all obstacles. At first, she had deemed it delightful that he should be attached to Mabel, now it seemed much more appropriate that he should make the most of the Dudgeons. Through the Leightons they had formed a slight acquaintance there, which had lately shown signs of development. It became necessary to sow seeds of disaffection in the mind of Robin where the Leightons were concerned. He had become too much of their world. He was a man not easily influenced, and he had had a great affection for Mabel. But the constant wearing of the stone had invariably been the treatment for Robin, and lately a good deal of wearing had been necessary on account of Mr. Symington.

She began to recall just how much she had said to Mr. Symington. Her face burned with the recollection that he had shown how much he thought of Mabel. She had put the matter from Mabel's point of view. While Mr. Symington was there, Mabel's happiness with Robin was interfered with. Miss Meredith had intended to infer that it was his constant attendance at the White House which was being called in question. Whereas, he had already, unknown to her, settled on it as meaning Ridgetown. He had interrupted her abruptly, with stern lips, "Pardon me, but will you let me know distinctly,--is Miss Leighton engaged to your brother?" Miss Meredith saw her chance and took it at a run. "Yes," she said. It was hardly a lie, considering how Robin and Mabel had been linked for so many years in a tacit sort of manner.

"That--I had not understood," said Mr. Symington. Whereupon he immediately wrote his letter to Mabel.

Miss Meredith had always had her own ideas of Mr. Symington. He was not the companion for these very young girls. He was not old, on the other hand, but he possessed a temperament which put him on another plane than that of the rather boisterous Leighton family. On the Meredith plane, if one would have the words spoken.

"Robin," she said that evening, after the arrival of Isobel, "let us go down to the Leightons' as though nothing had happened."

Robin turned a reserved mask of a countenance in her direction.

"You women can do anything," he said.

The weariness of being without these kaleidoscopic friends of theirs had already beset him. They were still in time to find the old level again. It would certainly be a freezing world without the Leightons. Everybody knew that one might get social advantages with the Dudgeons, but one had always a ripping time with the Leightons.

Miss Meredith, on her part, began to wonder, now that Mr. Symington was warned and would keep Robin from feeling the desirability of the girl whom two men were after, whether Robin himself might be more gently weaned than by thus being borne away on an open rupture. Robin was in the position of a man who had been brought up by mother and sister. Practically, whatever he had touched all his life had remained his own, sacred and inviolate. It seemed that Mabel ought to have remained his own merely because he had once stretched out his hand in her direction. Then, he began to find that he reckoned with a family which had been taught unselfishness.

Isobel, to do her justice, always imagined that Mabel from the reserve of her welcome on the occasion of her arrival, resented her presence at the White House. She noticed that of all the girls to welcome her, Mabel kept a constrained silence. This she immediately put down to a personal distaste of herself, and controlled her actions accordingly. From the first moment of greeting her aunt and uncle, and sitting down to table, she upheld a sweetness of character which was unassailable, and which put Mabel's distrait manner into rather wicked relief. Isobel's was a nature, formed and articulate, entirely independent of the feelings and sympathies of others, a nature which could thrive and blossom on any trouble and disappointment, so long as these were not her own. She had learned in the mixed teaching of her rather stranded life, that very little trouble or disappointment came in the way of those who could see what they wanted and grab with both hands accordingly. She determined to grab with both hands every benefit to be derived from being leader in the Leighton family. She had come there with the intention of being leader. Before the meal was over, she had gained the good opinion of all except Mabel, an intentional exclusion on her part. Mabel had received her without effusion. Here was rivalry. In the most methodical and determined manner, she began a long siege of those rights and privileges which Mabel, as head of the Leighton girls, had never had really questioned before. She supplied a link in their musical circle, incomplete before. She could sing. Her methods were purely technical and so highly controlled, that the rather soulful playing of the Leighton girls shrank a little into a background of their own making. Isobel's voice was like a clear photograph, developed to the last shred of minuteness. One heard her notes working with the precision of a musical box. The tiring nature of her accomplishments was never evident at a first performance. These only appeared to be ripplingly brilliant. She had the finished air and mechanical mannerisms of the operatic artist, and they became startlingly effective in a room where music only in its natural and most picturesque aspect had been indulged. Mr. Leighton endeavoured to reconcile himself to a person who was invariably at top notes, and Isobel deceived herself into thinking that she charmed him. She charmed the others however, and Jean especially was at her feet. It struck her that probably she would be able to get more of the fat of life out of Jean than out of any one. She noted that Jean ordered a good deal where others consulted or merely suggested. Ordering was more in her line.

Of Mrs. Leighton she took no account whatever, except that she was invariably sweet in her presence.

It dawned on no one that a very dangerous element had been introduced into the clear heaven of the wise rule of the White House.

Mabel's mind at the start, it is true, was in a subconscious condition of warning. The particular kind of warning she could not recognize, but, long after, attached it to the attitude of Isobel. In a month or two, she found that while her family still remained outwardly at one with her, a subtle disrespect of any opinion of hers, a discontent at some of her mildest plans, seemed to invade the others. It came upon her that her ideas were very young and crude with Isobel there to give finer ones.

Ah! that was it. Isobel was so much better equipped for deciding things than she was. It affected Mabel's playing when she imagined that her family found it at last not good enough. She never could play for Isobel. On the first night of arrival, Mabel was most concerned, however, on how she was to give certain news to her father and mother. Mr. Leighton had heard from Mr. Symington--only that he had been called away. Mabel took the news in public with a great shrinking Her heart cried out in rebellion, and instead of indulging that wild cry, she had to be interested in the arrival of Isobel. She caught Isobel's keen darkness of gaze on her, and shifted weakly under its influence to apparent unconcern and laughter.

At the worst of it, when they were taking tea in the drawing-room after dinner, Robin and his sister came in. Miss Meredith's _coup_ was worth her fear and distrust in experimenting with it. Robin became genuinely interested in Isobel. This made him almost kind to Mabel.

It concentrated all Mabel's wild rush of feelings to a triumph of pride. Where she would willingly have gone to her room and had it out with herself, she waited calmly in the drawing-room and heard Isobel's first song.

Miss Meredith's heart glowed feebly. She had won her point. But Mabel's face heralded disaster.

Elma too would not look at her.

Elma trembled with the weight of what she would like to say to Sarah Meredith, and could not. Feebly she determined not to shake hands with her, then found herself as having done it.

Mr. Leighton talked quite unconcernedly about the departure of Mr. Symington. "Can you tell me why he leaves us so suddenly?" he asked of Miss Meredith.

She had always made a point of liking to be asked about Mr. Symington. This time she seemed afraid of the subject, certainly of Mr. Leighton's airy manner of handling it. Robin's face flushed hotly in an enraged sort of manner. Mabel's grew cold.

With all their experience of each other, and their knowledge of what had been going on, none in the room knew the nature of the crisis at hand, except the actors in it, and Elma. But, by the intuition of a nature that scented disaster easily and wilfully, Isobel, without a word from one of them, saw some of these hearts laid bare.

Miss Meredith, ill at ease, interested her immensely.

Miss Meredith at last answered that she knew nothing of the reason why Mr. Symington had left so abruptly.

Elma rose shaking in every limb.

"That is not true," she said. Her voice, more that her words carried effect.

She could go no further, she could only say, "That is not true."

Mrs. Leighton looked very surprised, and then helplessly bewildered. Miss Meredith had a talent for seeing her chance. She saw it here. She turned in a rather foolish way, as though they intended some compliment.

"Indeed," said she, "you all over-rate my influence with Mr. Symington. It is nothing to me whether he goes or stays."

Mabel pulled Elma into a corner.

"Oh shut up dear, for Heaven's sake shut up!" she whispered, and that incident was closed.

But Isobel began to play with a loud triumphant accompaniment and sang in a manner which might have shown every one the thing which she thought she had just discovered.

Instead, they all declared they had never heard such clear top notes.